Lavosh/lavash. Know aliases: cracker bread, lawaash, paraki, Armenian cracker bread, lahvosh, lawasha, naan-e-lavaash. But it’s moniker isn’t important. In the words of William Shakespeare, this cracker by any other name would taste as good.
Joelen at What’s Cookin’ Chicago recently made Lavosh, and after finding out that the recipe is included in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice (and in fancy restaurant bread baskets everywhere), I decided that it counts towards day three of bread week.
Rosemary and Parmesan Garlic Lavosh Crackers
(adapted from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice)
You’ll need:
1 1/2 cups bread flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
1 tablespoon honey (I substituted corn syrup)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/3 to 1/2 cup water, room temperature
coarse salt, fresh ground pepper, garlic powder, rosemary, white pepper, shredded parmesan for topping
Mix all the ingredients minus the spices and parmesan for topping.
Knead for about 10 minutes. I learned another trick for checking dough doneness, in addition to the finger-poke test: if you can strech the dough without tearing it (in moderation, of course), it’s ready. This is called the “windowpane test.”
Let the dough rise in an oiled bowl covered with cling wrap until it has doubled in size. This should take about an hour and a half.
Lay out greased parchment paper on your work surface. Roll out the dough on the parchment until it is as thin as you can get it. I had to cut mine in half in order to fit the dough in two sheet pans.
It should look like this:
Put the dough, parchment and all, on sheet pans, spray with water and top with spices. You can get really creative here. I used freshly grated parmesan, fresh ground pepper, course salt and garlic powder for one, and rosemary, fresh ground pepper, white pepper, course salt and a few drizzles of olive oil for the other.
Then cut your dough into the desired shape. This is optional—you can always break it up into pieces after it bakes.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 20-25 minutes. Some of my thinner pieces cooked faster, so I pulled them out a little early.
It turned out great—crunchy, spicy and flavorful. This would be great with soft cheese (actually, any cheese) and of course, say it with me now, “Butter!”
okay, i’ll be honest, i’ve never heard of this before, but it looks fantastic!! I am lovin’ bread week!
Beautiful job and I’m glad to have inspired you for your Day 3 of your bread week! I love your choice of toppings… especially the parmesan. I plan on making this again for the holidays to give out as gifts and will definitely plan on using more cheese as toppings (you can never have enough cheese, right?)
looks lovely! are you breaded-out yet? or can that even happen?!
Yes, it doesn’t matter how you call it because it’s beautiful and delicious.
this looks so crunchy and delicious. we live by little armenia in LA and sell lavash bread. do you think we can rub evoo and sprinkle on the herbs and bake it with good results?
Absolutely! I drizzled some on almost as an after thought, but it would be a good way to make the herbs stick, too. I think if you are talking about baking the already cooked lavosh to get the herbs on there, obviously bake it for less time and probably at a lower temp. Thanks for the comment!
[...] the yeast. Mix in all other ingredients and knead for 10 minutes or until your dough passes the windowpane test. This may have been where I went wrong. The dough felt too wet, so I added flour. According to [...]
[...] (torn in pieces) and the salt and knead for 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth and passes the windowpane test. It should still be a little tacky, but not so much that it’s impossible to work with. Put [...]